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Consumer complaints about payday loans to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) show a critical need for strengthening the agency’s proposed rule to rein in payday loans and other high-cost lending, according to a report released today by the CoPIRG Foundation.

This is the seventh in a series of reports that review complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In this report, we explore consumer complaints about predatory loans, categorized in the database as payday loans, installment loans, and auto title loans.

With Colorado poised to spend billions of dollars on transportation in the coming years, a new report released today by the CoPIRG Foundation and the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP) finds that Colorado needs to invest at least $1.05 billion per year in transit, biking, and pedestrian infrastructure and services to meet the demands and challenges of the state’s shifting demographics and growing population.

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Dangerous or toxic toys can still be found on America’s store shelves, according CoPIRG Foundation’s 30th annual Trouble in Toyland report. The survey of potentially hazardous toys found that, despite recent progress, consumers must still be wary when shopping this holiday season.

On October 20th Subway announced that it is making the shift to serving meat raised without antibiotics. The sandwich giant will serve only antibiotic free chicken by the end of 2016, with a shift on turkey by 2019, and pork and beef completed by 2025. The decision came in anticipation of a petition delivery to headquarters of more than 270,000 petition signatures by CoPIRG staff and other advocacy groups.

Noodles and Company, a Broomfield-based fast-casual food chain, announced a new policy that will phase out the use of antibiotics in their bacon, steak and meatball products by late 2016 and phase out antibiotics in chicken products by 2017. They have already phased out antibiotics in their pork. The announcement was hailed by CoPIRG as an important step in tackling the rise of antibiotic resistant “superbugs” and saving the effectiveness of human antibiotics.

Denver, October 6 – Tax loopholes encouraged more than 72 percent of Fortune 500 companies – including Western Union, Level Three Communications, and Arrow Electronics here in Colorado – to maintain subsidiaries in offshore tax havens as of 2014, according to “Offshore Shell Games,” released today by CoPIRG Foundation and Citizens for Tax Justice. Collectively, the companies reported booking nearly $2 trillion offshore for tax purposes, with just 30 companies accounting for 65 percent of the total, or $1.35 trillion.

Yesterday, the CFPB published the first batch (7,700) of consumer narratives or stories to the Public Consumer Complaint Database it began in 2011. We've used the database to publish five reports (so far) analyzing complaint trends in markets ranging from credit cards to student loans but we have also long urged the voluntary addition of stories to the data fields. Now, consumers can learn if what happened to them happened to anyone else. Now, researchers can track which banks are more responsive to particular problems and which ignore their customers. A good resource is now an excellent resource.

Transportation funding is a growing issue in Colorado as politicians and transportation officials grapple with funding challenges resulting from a decline in the value of the state’s gas tax, uncertainty around federal transportation funds, shifting travel trends, and pressures from the state’s growing population. Increasingly, state and local officials are looking at new kinds of arrangements between the public and profit-seeking corporations to provide upfront financing for transportation projects, including toll roads and transit lines.

This study demonstrates that despite recent steps forward in the marketplace, high textbook costs will continue to be a problem for students unless the cost of high-priced, new editions of college textbooks comes down.

In this report we explore consumer complaints about credit cards with the aim of uncovering patterns in the problems consumers are experiencing with their credit cards and documenting the role of the CFPB in helping consumers successfully resolve their complaints.